among which it dwells, and render it very inconspicuous. All the
specimens sold in Malacca are caught in snares, and my informant,
though he had shot none, had snared plenty.

The tiger and rhinoceros are still found here, and a few years
ago elephants abounded, but they have lately all disappeared. We
found some heaps of dung, which seemed to be that of elephants,
and some tracks of the rhinoceros, but saw none of the animals.
However, we kept a fire up all night in case any of these
creatures should visit us, and two of our men declared that they
did one day see a rhinoceros. When our rice was finished, and our
boxes full of specimens, we returned to Ayer-Panas, and a few
days afterwards went on to Malacca, and thence to Singapore.
Mount Ophir has quite a reputation for fever, and all our friends
were astonished at our recklessness in staying so long at its
foot; but none of us suffered in the least, and I shall ever
look back with pleasure to my trip as being my first
introduction to mountain scenery in the Eastern tropics.

The meagreness and brevity of the sketch I have here given of my
visit to Singapore and the Malay Peninsula is due to my having
trusted chiefly to some private letters and a notebook, which
were lost; and to a paper on Malacca and Mount Ophir which was
sent to the Royal Geographical Society, but which was neither
read nor printed owing to press of matter at the end of a
session, and the MSS. of which cannot now be found. I the less
regret this, however, as so many works have been written on these
parts; and I always intended to pass lightly over my travels in
the western and better known portions of the Archipelago, in
order to devote more space to the remoter districts, about which